Talking About Sports in Spanish: Football, Baseball, and Beyond
Where my Spanish truly turned pro I had lived in the Dominican Republic for six months before I realized my Spanish still belonged to textbooks. Ordering coffee? Fine. Arguing with utility companies? Functional. But the first time I rode a packed guagua buzzing about the evening’s Águilas vs. Licey showdown, I understood barely twenty percent […]
Raised Glasses, Rolling R’s—Toasting & Celebratory Spanish Phrases for Weddings and Parties
The night a toast stitched me into a new family My first Dominican wedding unfolded in a breezy gazebo outside Puerto Plata. White chairs stood in rows, their ribbons trembling under Caribbean trade winds. I knew exactly two ceremonial Spanish lines—“¡Salud!” and “¡Viva los novios!”—and clutched them like a boarding pass. The bride, Paola, was […]
Dating in Spanish: From First Texts to Meeting the Parents
An unexpected match on a humid Tuesday I was two months into life in the Dominican Republic when the dating app pinged. Her profile said she loved bachata, rooftop sunsets, and was “fanática de los trabalenguas”—a tongue-twister enthusiast. I swiped right mostly because I wanted someone to help me pronounce “tres tristes tigres” without spraining […]
Spanish Idioms That Will Make You Sound Native
The first time I tried to sprinkle an idiom into Spanish conversation, I misfired so badly that my motoconcho driver almost crashed. We were weaving through Santiago traffic when I attempted to say, in the spirit of “it’s a piece of cake,” that finishing my residency paperwork had been easy. What came out—courtesy of a […]
From Santo Domingo to Medellín: Spanish Idioms That Will Make You Sound Native
The first time a Dominican friend asked me “¿Y la vaina?” I froze, unsure whether he was searching for a lost object, testing my vocabulary, or simply teasing the new foreigner. Months later, on a rooftop in Medellín, a Colombian roommate greeted me with “¡Qué más pues, parce?” and I felt the same short circuit […]
Invited to a “Quinceañera”? Key Cultural Customs & Phrases
When you have lived in the Dominican Republic long enough, you get used to a certain rhythm of celebration. Birthdays erupt into perico ripiao at 2 a.m., every promotion is toasted with rum that seems to refill itself, and Christmas dinners stretch past dawn while aunts trade gossip over a bubbling pot of jengibre. That […]
Managing a Multilingual Team—Spanish for Team Leaders
When the Inbox Turned Bilingual At five a.m. a subject line changed my life: “¡Felicitaciones! You now lead the LATAM remote squad.” In a heartbeat I went from guiding five English‑speaking developers to steering twenty colleagues who chatted in a soft current of Caribbean Spanish, Bogotá formality, and occasional Portuguese loanwords. My first Monday stand‑up […]
Remote-Work Etiquette in Spanish-Speaking Teams
The day the rooster met the unmuted mic At 7:58 a.m. I clicked “Join” for our Monday stand-up with colleagues spread from Santo Domingo to Bogotá. Two seconds later my neighbor’s rooster punctured the tropical air: “¡Quiquiriquí!” The audio meter spiked. I fumbled for the mute button while the dev lead, Camila in Medellín, laughed: […]
Spanish Lesson: Industry‑Specific Jargon — Tech, Finance, and Healthcare
Preamble: One Consultant, Three Worlds, Endless Terminology When I first landed in Santiago de los Caballeros, I thought the Spanish I’d mastered ordering chimis and arguing baseball statistics would carry me through any conversation. But language, like software versions, updates itself by sector. The words that open doors at an app‑development sprint barely register on […]
Presenting in Spanish: Vocabulary for Slides & Q &A
Coffee, Projectors, and the First Time My Slide Deck Spoke Spanish The first time I presented in Spanish, I stood before a dozen executives in Santiago, pointer trembling. My title slide boldly read “Reporte de Crecimiento Q2 20XX”, but the moment I said “reporté” instead of reporté**, the finance director cocked an eyebrow. I recovered, […]